Monday June 13, 2022 St. Croix State Park – Mistakes Were Made

St. Croix State Park is the largest state park in Minnesota. It’s also the park that taught me just how out of shape I have gotten since our last hike at the end of October last year. Our hike was to be 4.0 miles, mostly along the St. Croix River, and when I inquired at the park office about the terrain, she said the Hiking Club hike was fairly flat. She also said we might see a black mama bear and her cubs, which had been seen by hikers the previous week. I didn’t bring the trail description booklet on the hike like we usually do and we ended up having reason to regret that. But let’s start out at the beginning, on a sunny, cloudless day around 9:00 a.m. with a temperature of 57 degrees. We both agreed that we could not have chosen a better day.

We hadn’t walked more than a few yards when we realized that a dose of bug repellant was going to be in order. We sprayed it on liberally the first time and more liberally the second time about an hour later. The mosquitos were our constant companions, keeping up that steady whining noise for which they are so well known. For the most part, the bug spray formed an efficient, if smelly shield. But no matter – we were glad to be back on the hike, walking amidst spring greenery with our cameras, ice water, and our plant-identifying app.

It turned out that walking “along” the St. Croix River meant walking on a high bluff along it where you couldn’t see it for the many trees. There were several places that had steps down to the river if you wanted to get up close and personal. I thought we could do that when we got back, an optimistic thought indeed. We stopped here and there to take photos and to try to identify the various flora on our path. By now, as seasoned hikers, we knew that most of what we saw, we’d seen on other spring hikes at other parks. Each time is like the first time, though and photos were taken.

‘Tis the time of year for columbine and after taking a photo of an attractive grouping of them, I thought about how inextricably the name of the plant has become attached to the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. At least for me. A few years ago I listened to a book by the mother of one of the killers which was very compelling and interesting. I recommend it: A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold.

We also saw a few remnants of burnt trees here and there, proof of a somewhat recent fire there (although it could have been many years ago). And that got me thinking about the Hinckley firestorm of September 1, 1894, Hinckley being the nearest city to St. Croix State Park. There’s a museum in Hinckley that commemorates that disastrous fire and I believe one of the local cemeteries also includes a monument to those who died in the fire. If you want to know more about that, check out the book Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel Brown, which I read a couple months ago.

By the by, we came to a section of the hike where you really could see the river and not far along that part of the trail, we came to the sign for the Yellow Banks CCC Camp.

I hadn’t read the trail description carefully and had thought that we’d see the actual camp, but instead there were some informational plaques with photos of the original camp, now long gone. If we’d brought the trail booklet with us, we would have at this time perhaps looked at it again and noticed that we were supposed to tour the entire CCC camp loop and then return. But we did not. We were relying on the usually excellent HC Trail signs at the parks and there was no sign indicating that all of that was part of the hike. So we decided to by-pass the rest of the plaques and move on. This was a sad, sorry moment.

We kept walking, looking at maps along the way which indicated a loop up ahead. Oh, that’s the loop we’re looking for, thought I, having at least remembered that the word “loop” was in the trail description. But it was taking FOREVER to get even to the beginning of the loop and my legs, hips and knees were feeling very fatigued. Along the way, a few bright spots would occur, such as the sight of a downed cottonwood tree resting in all of the cloudy white fluff from the seeds. Remarkable! And then we surprised a group of turkeys. They took flight and I was too late to get anything but an unfocussed shot of the last one disappearing into the woods.

When we finally started the loop, I was excited. This was going to be where we’d come around and start heading back. The only problem was that the loop didn’t seem to understand the concept of looping. It kept going on nearly straight, or so it seemed to me. Kris stopped to look at something and I kept moving doggedly ahead, focused only on getting back to the car at this point. The beauties of the wilderness ceased to be of interest. I heard the noise of a very large animal on my left in the brush and wondered if this was the black bear. It was a deer that came out practically right in front of me on the trail. Once again, my camera was too slow.

We finally reached another map and it was at this point that we understood that we’d way overshot the mark on the hike. Going forward to finish the loop was unthinkable – we weren’t even halfway through. We decided to turn around and go back. I can’t tell you the despair I felt at this, mostly because I was already feeling like I couldn’t walk one more step and it appeared that we probably had about 3 miles to go.

Kris walked a little ahead of me on the way back, which was fine with me – I figured that he could let me know when we were getting close and I was definitely slowing down. Even though it was only 70 degrees, it seemed like 90 degrees to me. My hands were swelling up with the heat, my fingers like fat sausages. I had the idea that maybe if I held my hands up, it would help to “unsausage” them. Kris turned around at some point and was amused to see me walking as if I was being held up.

The way back was an endless trudge, or at least it seemed so. “This is the trail that never ends…yes it goes on and on my friend…” That was the song running through my brain. I made an effort to recall encouraging Bible verses about perseverance. One of the first Bible verses I memorized back in the day was Isaiah 41:10 which says, “But they who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength. They shall rise up like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” That would have been a good one to rally my spirits, but I didn’t think of it then. Every bend in the trail filled me with hope that we were close to the end, and every bend let me down. Kris pointed toward something. “Can you see our car?” I called out hopefully. “No, but it’s the highway, so we must be getting close!” he said cheerfully. “I don’t want to know about the highway,” I snapped uncharitably, “Just tell me if you see the car.” They say that when you are pressed, you show your true nature. Or that when the cup is jostled, what spills out is what’s really inside the cup. I’m not proud of what spilled out of the cup at that point.

Well, here I am typing this up, so clearly we persevered, the trail ended and I did not perish from exhaustion. It took us an hour longer to do the hike than if we’d understood and followed the Hiking Club trail, but on the other hand, we got to see a few things that we wouldn’t have otherwise. G.K. Chesterton said “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” It’s all in the attitude, isn’t it? So looking back, in spite of the extra miles and the fatigue, I want to remember this hike as an adventure.

Afterward, we stopped by Camp Nathanael, a Christian boys’ camp that Kris brought our sons to when they were growing up. We spent the afternoon applying polyurethane to boards which were going to go on the walls of the dining hall. God’s world in the morning, God’s work in the afternoon. It was a good day.

Knee score: 3-4 (fairly level terrain, long hike)

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Phew!

Next hike: Camden State Park